Watch him roam the field in Orlando City’s Walmart Saturday Showdown clash with New York City FC at Inter.co Stadium this weekend, and you’ll see the artfulness and audacity in Justin Ellis’ game (7:30 pm ET | Apple TV).
The Lions’ homegrown forward is one of MLS’s most skillful creators on the ball; only Cavan Sullivan and Georgi Minoungou have completed more successful dribbles per match in 2026. The 19-year-old also has an eye for the killer pass: Ellis ranks second on his team in assists with 11, despite having played only about half of their available minutes in league action, and ranks joint-third in key passes.
His outstanding performances for the US men’s national team in the recent FIFA international window proved he knows how to finish, too, with a goal in each of his first two starts for the Yanks.
Despite his youth – or maybe because of it – Ellis is every bit as much of an entertainer as Antoine Griezmann, Martín Ojeda and anyone else in Orlando purple.
“On the pitch, I definitely do play with a good amount of personality,” Ellis told MLSsoccer.com in a one-on-one conversation this week. “It's super important for the fans to enjoy the game as much as us on the field. They're paying money to come see us play, so we have to make sure that they have fun as well.
“Obviously, the most important thing is win the game. But it's good to have fun.”
Rise to stardom
The Wellington, Florida native says it’s a very different story outside the white lines. Soft-spoken by nature, he’s still coming to grips with the consequences of his rapidly rising profile, determined to stay grounded amid an explosion of hype after his USMNT displays.
“I don't really enjoy the attention too much, but I know what it comes with,” he acknowledged.
“I just like to keep my family close to me. I like to keep my circle small, and my love for the game, for soccer, will never change, and I'm always trusting God, praying to God. I think those are the three biggest things in my life: my soccer, family and God. And I just try to keep that little base just right there to live my life.”
If you could peek into the Lions’ dressing room, Ellis maintains, you’d see it’s not him behaving like an energetic teenager, but a certain older teammate – a bleached-blond 2018 FIFA World Cup winner, to be specific.
“I'm sitting right next to Griezmann,” revealed Ellis, “and he's pretty loud in the locker room, so I'm always within the chaos. But I'm more of like the quiet kid.
“I mean, he's 35 years old, but he acts like he's me and Harvey [Sarajian]'s age. Kind of crazy,” he added, before bestowing Grizi with a Gen Z honorific the Frenchman might not want to hear. “He's unc. He's unc.”
Being comfortable enough to lightly roast Griezmann reflects the relationship the two have developed on and off the field over the past few months.
Ellis assisted on the Atlético Madrid icon’s debut MLS goal in July, just as Grizi had predicted before the match, and did a rendition of the latter’s ‘Hotline Bling’ celebration together afterwards. Ellis hails Griezmann for inspiring him to be more committed to his defensive duties – a view Lions interim head coach Martín Perelman shares – and they and a few other teammates have also bonded over long hours locked in on the EA Sports FC video game, crafting connections that helped spark a 180-degree turn in Orlando’s season after a brutal 1W-6L-1D start.
“He has an incredible talent,” said Griezmann of Ellis this summer, “and if he continues adding more … he’ll be a player for a top European team one day.”
Winding road
Remarkably, that radiant future is emerging in a first-generation soccer story.
Ellis is quick to credit his parents for their loving support; notably, his father relocated with him to Orlando when OCSC invited him to join their academy program at age 15, while mom stayed behind at their South Florida home. And he credits Javier Carrillo, the Lions’ head of player development, for bringing him to the club and guiding him towards the best version of himself when he initially struggled in those new surroundings.
Yet Ellis’ skill set and creativity are by and large self-made.
“I think that just comes from my imagination, because none of my family background has ever played soccer. I'm the first soccer player in the bloodline,” explained Ellis, an only child.
“The first time I ever touched a soccer ball, in preschool or something, I guess – my parents told me I was pretty good when I first touched the ball. I don't know. I guess I just found it fun. … I've always felt like that was something that God gave me.”
By the time he was 12, Ellis was thriving at Weston FC, the South Florida youth powerhouse that he and many others consider the top non-MLS academy program in the United States. When Inter Miami CF launched their own much-anticipated academy in 2019, he was selected to join. Yet a few seasons later, “my opportunity kind of ran out there for some reason,” he says. Earlier this year he told American Soccer Now that, “I think they kind of just stopped believing in me.”
By that time Carrillo had moved from Weston to Orlando, and just as he did with the Lions’ 2025 breakout star Alex Freeman, he invited Ellis north. Carrillo had seen something in him – an attacker who thought and moved differently.
“I used to watch a lot of YouTube,” said Ellis when asked to explain where he picked up his technique and vision. “I would always ask for my dad's phone just to watch YouTube highlight videos [of] some of the most skillful players ever, like Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Zidane, these big players that make you dream.
“These players gave me emotion when I would watch them do these types of things, and it gave me the ability to dream. My mind is pretty creative, and I try to express that when I'm on the field.”
Dual-national decisions
Last month another legend from that glittering generation flew thousands of miles to pay him a visit.
Former Villarreal and Atleti striker Diego Forlán now leads both Uruguay’s under-20 and senior national teams, and thanks to his mother’s Uruguayan parents, Ellis is eligible to represent La Celeste at the international level. Amid all the superlative talent produced by the small, soccer-mad South American nation, he’d caught the eye of Forlán and his staff, so the Celeste great flew to the United States to watch him assist on the third goal in a 3-0 Lions win over Toronto FC and convey the program’s interest.
“It was super special,” said Ellis. “He's one of the best Uruguay players in history, and it was a pleasure to meet him and to talk to him. It was just a big, big honor.
“He watched the game against Toronto, and yeah, he told me that he likes the way I play ball, and yeah, that was really it.”
Forlán might well have been ruing his luck when Ellis scored that emotional opener vs. Peru in his USMNT debut on the familiar turf of Inter.co Stadium two weeks later. As much as his Uruguayan heritage means to him, it sounds like the jersey he wore in his childhood dreams was that of his birth country.
“I mean, I was just with the USA,” he said of his international future, adding that he hopes to get another call-up from USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino soon. “I don't think I'm cap-tied, but it's – yeah. That's all I have to say, right? I just played with USA, I did well, so that's really that.
“It's something that I've dreamed of since I was a little kid, and yeah, I'm just going to take back what I learned from the older guys, the senior guys, from Pochettino, just all the fun I had at that camp.”
His learning curve was smoothed by the presence of so many other youngsters like Sullivan and Julian Hall, several of whom he’d already worked alongside at youth national team camps. Ellis reveals that he actually played with goalkeeper Diego Kochen way back at Weston, when he was about 10.
“It makes you a little bit more calm when you have other young guys next to you that you've seen play, that you played with or against, and that you're friends with,” he said. “For most of us to just go and make an impact was something incredible. I think we showed that we're ready. The bond between the young guys was super amazing.”
Teenage metamorphosis
A traditional USMNT ritual nudged Ellis out of his introversion: When he and the 12 other USMNT newcomers were directed to stand up in front of the entire squad and sing a song.
Some are more musically gifted than others. Real Salt Lake product Zavier Gozo got rave reviews for his rendition of ‘Let Me Love You’ by R&B crooner Mario – “he just has a great voice,” confirmed Ellis – while others’ vocal skills were panned, most prominently Red Bull New York’s midfield wunderkind Adri Mehmeti.
“We all love Adri,” said Ellis with a grin. “He's so funny off the field. I always let him know, just thank God for soccer, because you're a crazy kid.”
As for Ellis himself, he picked Drake’s afrobeats-inflected 2016 smash ‘One Dance.’
“Me, I wouldn't say I was like, top three, but I was definitely around the middle,” he recalled. “I didn't get booed off, and I got some praise after, and I got clapped off. So as long as you're getting clapped off when you step off the stool, you're good.”
It’s a good time for Ellis to get comfortable with the spotlight, given the speed with which he’s rocketed from intriguing youth prospect to emerging star.
He entered the year with just two career MLS minutes on his stats sheet. Today he occupies the No. 5 spot on MLSsoccer.com’s 22 Under 22 rankings of the league’s top rising talents, and this week was named the 2026 MLS NEXT Pro Pathway Player of the Year.
Dutch side PSV Eindhoven are among those said to be admirers, and European interest will only increase in the wake of his USMNT exploits. A TikTok post from Liverpool’s training ground bearing Ellis’ name sparked sudden commotion around the Merseyside club this week, though a source with knowledge of the situation tells MLSsoccer.com it was a fake account.
Sooner or later, his next move will materialize, and he’ll keep advancing one step at a time.
“I just want to play at the highest level possible in soccer,” said Ellis. “I have big dreams of what I want to accomplish in the game. But I know that only comes to me by trusting God and working hard every day.”
